A recent 5Pillars poll found that 62% of our audience blames Israel for the 9/11 attacks, but what actual evidence lies behind this theory? Robert Carter lays it all out.
As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, 5Pillars asked its readers and viewers who they believed was responsible for the attacks. The results were striking but not very surprising: 62% selected Israel, while just 3% attributed sole responsibility to Al Qaeda. A further 26% selected the theory that the attacks were an “inside job” by the U.S. administration.
The poll was conducted over 24 hours and received around 900 responses, reflecting a long-running belief among some in the Arab and Muslim world that Israel was either directly responsible for the attacks or had prior knowledge of the plot but allowed it to go ahead without warning Washington.
Israel’s leadership and its supporters have rubbished such claims as “antisemitic”, while mainstream Western media has generally dismissed allegations of Israeli involvement as conspiracy theories. However, despite this, the belief that Israel was somehow behind 9/11 remains widespread, including among many of those who responded to the 5Pillars poll.
So, why does the theory resonate among so many Muslims, and what evidence is actually cited to back up the claim?
Did Israel have prior knowledge?
Israel boasts a highly sophisticated intelligence service and, like America and other Western countries, was monitoring “Islamic militant organisations” at the time leading up to the 9/11 attacks. It has also been established that there were warning signs about an impending Al Qaeda attack circulating among intelligence agencies before September 11, but it wasn’t clear where the attack would come from or what the target was.
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A 1987 statement entered into the U.S. Congressional Record said Israeli intelligence was believed to have “eyes and ears in most every Arab nation.” It cited examples including the infiltration of the Syrian government, the defection of an Iraqi MiG-21 pilot, and Israeli intelligence warnings passed to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Hindsight also demonstrates the depth to which Israeli intelligence has pierced inside the Muslim world with the 2024 pager attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the assassinations of the Shia group’s leadership in Beirut in 2024, and the assassination of senior Hamas leadership in Tehran in the same year.
So the idea that Israel, with the level of deep infiltration that it would have surely had within a world-famous group like Al Qaeda, wouldn’t have known of a massive attack on the West is hard to believe.
But this is important: America itself possessed significant intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda intended to attack the United States.
The 9/11 Commission documented numerous warnings in the months before the attacks and concluded that the U.S. intelligence system suffered from serious failures of information-sharing, analysis and response. This means that the same allegation of U.S. deep state suppression of a known planned attack has also been a recurring theory.
The crucial question is whether Israeli intelligence knew the precise nature and timing of the September 11 operation. There is no publicly established evidence demonstrating that it did.
Another frequently cited incident involves Odigo, an Israeli-founded instant-messaging company. Two employees in Israel reportedly received messages warning that something bad was going to happen shortly before 9/11.
The story sounds remarkable – and it is understandable why it has fuelled speculation – but the messages did not specifically warn about the World Trade Center or identify the 9/11 attacks. The information was subsequently passed to Israeli security officials and the FBI.
That brings us to another famous claim. The much more dramatic: did Israel warn thousands of Jews not to go to work at the World Trade Center?
Were American Jews warned?
One of the most widespread 9/11 conspiracy claims is that 4,000 Jewish employees of the World Trade Center were warned not to go to work on September 11.
On 12 October 2001, the Washington Post reported that a widespread myth had emerged that 4,000 Jewish office workers failed to turn up at the World Trade Center because they had been tipped off by Israeli intelligence.
It is not clear exactly where the number came from, but it is widely believed that the claim may have originated from an earlier figure concerning Israelis in the wider New York/Washington areas around the time.
The original figure referred to approximately 4,000 Israelis believed to be in New York and Washington around the time of the attacks. It was subsequently transformed into the claim that 4,000 Jewish employees of the World Trade Center had been warned to stay home.
However, this claim has been widely debunked since and it has been established that there were indeed Jewish victims of 9/11. This particular claim should therefore be regarded as false.
Israel was the biggest benefactor
The classic cui bono? The “who benefited?” argument. This has to be among the strongest talking points in the whole discussion from a Muslim perspective.
On September 11, 2001, then-former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked by The New York Times what the attacks meant for U.S.-Israeli relations. According to the contemporaneous New York Times report published on September 12, Netanyahu initially replied: “It’s VERY good.”
He immediately corrected himself: “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.”
Editorial credit: noamgalai / Shutterstock.com
He then said the attacks would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples”, arguing that Israel had experienced terrorism for decades and America had now experienced it on a much larger scale.
After 9/11, America invaded Afghanistan and subsequently invaded Iraq and embarked upon the “War on Terror” — a geopolitical shift Netanyahu strongly supported, particularly when it came to confronting Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
U.S. policy towards the Muslim world was transformed overnight and has never recovered since. Many countries which were once bedrock supporters of the Palestinian fight for liberation were destroyed, largely with U.S. involvement.
Israel also benefited from aspects of the new geopolitical environment and has since used global fears of “radical Islam” to smear Muslim groups and countries which oppose Israel’s continued occupation and conquest of Palestine.
There are also documented examples of pro-Israel donors and organisations funding or supporting far-right and anti-Muslim activists and groups in the U.S. and Europe, pushing talking points about the so-called threat of Islam.
One counter to the theory is that benefiting from an event does not necessarily prove that you caused it. Iran, for example, also benefitted from the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Some pro-Israel neocons in the U.S. have also sought to highlight alleged Iranian links to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 hijackers.
Nevertheless, indications seem to point to Israel as being one of the greatest geopolitical beneficiaries of 9/11, at least from the perspective of many Muslims.
‘The dancing Israelis’
Perhaps the most famous claim concerns five Israeli nationals detained in New Jersey on September 11 after witnesses reported seeing them photographing the burning World Trade Center and apparently celebrating.
The men worked for a moving company called Urban Moving Systems. They were first reported by a New Jersey woman who saw the group near the Doric Towers apartment buildings in Union City, overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
In her report, she said: “All of the males appeared to be jovial in that they smiled, hugged one another, and gave ‘high fives.’”
The five men were subsequently detained and investigated by the FBI.
The incident has attracted enormous speculation ever since, particularly over whether any of the men or Urban Moving Systems had connections to Israeli intelligence.
However, despite the suspicions surrounding the case, no publicly established evidence demonstrates that the five men had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks or participated in them.
They were eventually deported for immigration violations rather than prosecuted for terrorism.
That does not make the circumstances any less unusual. Why were they photographing the attacks? Why did witnesses interpret their behaviour as celebratory? And what, if anything, was the relationship between Urban Moving Systems and Israeli intelligence?
Those questions have helped keep the incident at the centre of theories about possible Israeli foreknowledge of 9/11. But the evidence publicly available does not establish that the five men knew the attacks were coming.
The Iraq connection?
The Iraq argument is particularly important because some supporters of the conspiracy point out that influential pro-Israel American politicians were discussing regime change even before 9/11, but no one was a bigger champion for a U.S.-led war on Iraq than Israel – specifically Benjamin Netanyahu.
For example, in 1998, the U.S. adopted the Iraq Liberation Act, which explicitly made regime change in Iraq official U.S. policy. Netanyahu was broadly aligned with that position, as were several prominent Israeli and American neoconservative figures.
In 2001, 9/11 happened. Then in September 2002, Netanyahu appeared before the U.S. House Government Reform Committee and strongly advocated confronting Saddam Hussein. In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq.
But the leap from “they wanted to invade Iraq” to “therefore they organised 9/11” is quite a jump. However, combined with other evidence, supporters of the theory argue that there are simply too many coincidences when it comes to the Israel link.
Of course, we also now know that the 9/11 investigation found no compelling evidence that Saddam’s government was responsible for the attacks in any way. Much of the narrative that fuelled the desire to wage war on Iraq as revenge for 9/11 was fuelled by Israeli propaganda.
ISIS, October 7 and the evolving theory
The conspiracy related to Israel’s alleged role in 9/11 has remained so steadfast in part because of its evolving nature. New additions which supposedly back up older beliefs continue to emerge surrounding Israel and its activities in the world.
Since 9/11, we have witnessed the Arab Spring, the rise and fall of ISIS, more regime change, the Syrian Civil War, the Abraham Accords, and the October 7 attack on Israel which led to an Israeli genocide in Gaza. Supporters of the theory argue that Israel has been involved either directly or indirectly in many of these events, has benefited strategically from some of them, and that the additional “coincidences” raise speculation of an Israeli “grand plan” at work.
Many Muslims believe that ISIS was essentially created or manipulated by Western and Israeli intelligence to spread sectarian hate in neighbouring countries and further destroy the Arab world. There is no publicly established evidence that Israel created ISIS but the group’s extreme behaviour, which would make even the Khawarij blush, saw it carry out attacks across the world. ISIS and ISIS-linked attackers did target Israel on occasions, but the comparatively limited scale of those attacks has itself fuelled suspicion among proponents of the theory.
Regime change in Muslim countries which support Palestine and oppose Israeli interests has also fed these suspicions, with proponents pointing to examples such as Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow in Libya in 2011 and the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt in 2013. Subsequent political realignments in parts of the Arab world, including normalisation with Israel, have further reinforced this perception.
But the October 7 attack and the subsequent genocidal war on Gaza and war against Iran are the biggest new pieces which supporters of the theory believe fit into the puzzle surrounding the activities of Israeli intelligence.
Netanyahu is currently under significant political pressure over allegations that he received warnings about the planned 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and failed to act on them. A report published by Haaretz on 8 September 2026, based on a forthcoming book by two of its journalists, claims that UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed personally warned Netanyahu roughly 10 days before 7 October that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was preparing a major operation. Netanyahu’s office has categorically denied that the conversation took place.
Additional claims speculate that Israeli leaders deliberately failed to respond adequately during the October 7 attack. No publicly established evidence demonstrates that Israel deliberately allowed the Hamas attack to take place.
Nevertheless, a new conspiracy theory that Israel’s deep state knew about the attack, allowed it to occur, then used it as justification for the genocide in Gaza and further expansion across historic Palestine has firmly taken shape. Many who believe it see October 7 as the latest example of what they suspect Israel’s deep state is capable of, and a revival of the 9/11 Israel-link theories has spread online ever since. The two theories increasingly feed off one another because of their perceived similarities.
Now, due to Iran’s links to Gaza, America is fighting a war which many onlookers, including Americans themselves, see as being fought on Israel’s behalf. Netanyahu has openly encouraged the overthrow of Iran’s government and argued that Israeli military action has created the conditions for regime change.
For those who already suspected an Israeli hand behind the geopolitical upheavals that followed 9/11, it all sounds very familiar.
So where does that leave the theory?
There are certainly aspects of the 9/11 story that deserve scrutiny.
Why did U.S. intelligence fail to connect the warnings it possessed? What exactly were the five Israelis in New Jersey doing? What was Urban Moving Systems’ relationship with Israeli intelligence? What did Israeli intelligence know about Al Qaeda before September 11? And why were so many warnings about an impending attack not acted upon?
These are legitimate questions.
But there is a crucial difference between “there are unanswered questions” and “therefore Israel organised 9/11.” The evidence publicly available does not establish the latter 100%.
Indeed, there are very good reasons to be sceptical of Western governments. The disastrous Iraq War, intelligence failures and decades of intervention in the Muslim world provide ample grounds for questioning official narratives. So there is nothing wrong with asking whether Israel knew more than it has admitted.
Twenty-five years later, there are still legitimate questions about 9/11. And while those questions remain unanswered and while Israel continues to breach so many international rules without any consequence, conspiracy theorists continue to fill the void.
Frankly, much of what has been alleged about Israel, more and more people – Muslim and non-Muslim alike – are finding it very hard not to believe.
